This Encyclopedia

This U.S. Encyclopedia of Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior is designed to be worthwhile and rewarding, but also very enjoyable. Encyclopedia entries are written by historical, sociological, and electoral behavior scholars from around the world. The primary focus is on American campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior, but entries, especially those written by foreign scholars, also provide a culturally and politically diverse perspective of American democratic practices and institutions. Although scholarly, the encyclopedia articles are written for the student and lay reader. Authors present topics in a straight forward, easy to understand manner, intentionally avoiding unnecessary technical language.

The coverage is very comprehensive, covering practically all of the conceivable topics of campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior. Naturally, choices had [Page viii]to be made as to what to include and exclude from the encyclopedia, but careful attention was given to making certain that virtually all relevant topics were included. It should also be recognized that the title of the encyclopedia itself received careful consideration, assuring that the wording accurately reflects the encyclopedia's diverse content. The chosen title conveys this: although the subject matter of campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior are inherently related, each topic has a distinct focus.

Campaigns

In this encyclopedia, virtually everything one would want to know about American political campaigns is covered. And this is no simple task because there are so many dimensions to campaign politics. Political campaigns can be very long, hi-tech, expensive national campaigns for the U.S. presidency, but they can be quite dissimilar short, lo-tech, inexpensive local campaigns for school board or dog catcher. Some of the most intense and expensive campaigns in American history have not involved candidates at all, but have been issue campaigns dedicated to causes from local tax increases to state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage or stem cell research. Although most campaigns for political office are partisan, some campaigns are non-partisan; for example, a campaign for district judge.

Much space in this encyclopedia is devoted to campaign organizations and structure because campaign politics cannot be understood without a thorough knowledge of the sophistication of modern campaign organizations and the complexities of their structures. Very small local campaigns today, as well as 19th century campaigns of yesteryear for even the highest state or national office, normally were not very sophisticated. However, all campaigns for these high offices certainly are now.

Virtually all contemporary campaign organizations are very well financed, involving millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars at the presidential level, and have complex, multi-tiered organizational structures. These organizations typically have on payroll a vast number of experienced political consultants; a campaign manager to oversee daily operations; many deputy campaign managers to handle specific job tasks; field directors; coalition or interest group coordinators; voter contact directors; communication directors; national and state media consultants; internet and blog specialists, research directors; policy analysts; and all sorts of other essential political campaign workers. In addition, campaign finance and election laws have become so complex that candidates must hire a team of accountants and lawyers just to make sure they are in compliance with election laws.

In recent decades, campaign strategies have evolved into a virtual science, especially in campaigns for high office, involving sophisticated targeting techniques, political advertising, media public relations, fundraising, get-out-the-vote efforts, and anything else designed to maximize a candidate's vote potential.

American political campaigns, with all of these developments, are covered in this encyclopedia in the context of our rich campaign history. The history of political campaigns has been filed with many colorful candidates, corrupt yet intriguing political machines, and rapidly changing technologies, campaign organizations, and strategies—all making for fascinating reading.

Elections

While coverage of campaigns in this encyclopedia focuses mostly on the more micro aspects of campaigns (for example, campaign management, organization, and strategies), election coverage takes a more macro view, focusing primarily on the results of these campaigns. Coverage is comprehensive. Description and scholarly analyses are given of all presidential elections, including the primary and general elections. Presidential candidates and their parties are profiled and critiqued in the context of the political landscape of the time. Much attention is also devoted to other federal elections for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and to state and local elections. Considerable effort is made to distinguish between the character of federal, state, and local elections, acknowledging how greatly elections can differ, given the enormous diversity in political climates and election laws. To make all of this more understandable, each state's political history is profiled, including coverage of each state's unique electoral history with its standout politicians.

Another important focus in this encyclopedia is on election administration. This entails the challenge of presenting and simplifying complicated election laws that govern federal, state, and local elections. This involves explaining, for instance, how the Electoral College works at the national level, and how various laws impact state and local election processes. Detailed explanations are given to the roles played by, for example, the Federal Election Commission, state election equivalents, election boards, and other bodies and participants, all the way down to precinct polling places, their election judges, and poll watchers. Also, a lot of attention is devoted to various efforts throughout [Page ix]the decades to reform elections. Although elections in America have overall served American democracy quite well, nonetheless, U.S. elections have been tarnished by a long history of episodic corruption.

Of course, the corrupt practices of the infamous political machines were notorious for rigging vote counts. Property requirements, Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, poll taxes, and white primaries, now all illegal, were used in an unscrupulous manner to disenfranchise voters. Even though many legal steps have been taken to make elections more honest (for example, constitutional amendments to enfranchise African Americans and women and to prohibit poll taxes; legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1964 aimed at stopping discriminatory election administration practices; and Supreme Court decisions outlawing unfair election processes), critics argue that American elections are still plagued with severe problems. Specifically, they charge that many Americans, especially minorities, are denied equal access to voter registration rolls and the ballot box, and that vote counts are too often corrupted by vote fraud and manipulation of voting machines, especially the new electronic voting machines that do not generate paper trails, therefore preventing transparency in the vote count.

Above all, serious attention is given to scholarly analyses of elections and their significance, historical and otherwise. For example, scholars have developed rather complex models to forecast elections based upon various socioeconomic and political considerations. Despite this “sophistication,” they sometimes fail. Why? Our contributors present and scrutinize these forecasting models. Political scientists have also categorized elections into election types because they feel that certain election outcomes suggest electoral shifts or trends of historical political significance. For example, certain elections are regarded as “critical” or “realigning” elections because a major electoral shift away from support for one party for another political party can be detected (for example, the 1936 election that gave Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party large vote margins and demonstrated a significant electoral shift away from the Republican Party). Other elections are considered, for example, “maintaining” elections, where the electorate is simply maintaining the control of the party in power.

Electoral Behavior

In an academic sense, electoral behavior is easily the most complicated of the three political areas reflected in the title of this encyclopedia: campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior. Studies in electoral behavior focus on a great variety of vote-related areas from the political culture of voters to the psychological factors that affect voter choice. Qualitative and quantitative research on electoral behavior has been intense and quite illuminating since at least the 1950s when the seminal work, The American Voter, was frst published. Since that time many research institutions such as Princeton Survey Associates, National Election Studies, Roper Center, Gallup Poll, and Zogby International have conducted a vast number of studies trying to understand American voting behavior in the context of America's unique political culture.

Contributors to this encyclopedia address virtually all the different dimensions of electoral behavior. Voter turnout is examined in the context of elections historically, covering the impact of such forces as extension of suffrage, barriers to registration, and the reasons for voting and nonvoting. Some political observers assert that the greatest reason that voter turnout in the United States has declined in the past several decades is simply because voters have become disgusted, alienated, and disinterested in politics. Others argue that another reason is that elections in America are too plentiful and too long. To place voter registration, turnout statistics, and electoral trends in the United States into an international perspective, comparisons are made to other countries.

Partisanship is carefully scrutinized because the dynamics of partisanship are key to understanding voting behavior. Why do people become partisan loyalists to the Republican and Democratic parties or decide to support third parties? Why have the ranks of independent voters swelled so much in the past several decades? What are the social characteristics of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents? How different are voters from what are now called Red and Blue states?

Also covered in this encyclopedia is the extensive electoral research into the development of political opinions, attitudes, and ideologies in American voters. Just why do voters become, for example, conservatives or liberals? More specifically, what are the social-economic-political-psychological forces that “cause” citizens to hold various political opinions, attitudes, and ideologies?

Electoral behavior experts have employed various methodologies to measure these causal forces, but scholars argue vehemently about the validity and reliability of these methodologies. These measures and criticisms of them are well explored by our encyclopedia's contributors.

Finally, a great deal of attention is paid to determinants of vote choice. Ultimately, why does a voter decide to vote for a particular candidate or for or against a ballot issue? What roles, for example, do partisanship, candidate image, and issues play in voter decisions. What roles do family, friends, coworkers, and even media coverage have in influencing vote choice? These are intriguing questions addressed in this encyclopedia.